European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA/Hubble Photo Release heic1615

Abell S1063, the final frontier.
Image credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI)

Fifty years ago Captain Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise began their journey into space — the final frontier. Now, as the newest Star Trek film hits cinemas, the NASA/ESA Hubble space telescope is also exploring new frontiers, observing distant galaxies in the galaxy cluster Abell S1063 as part of the Frontier Fields programme.(read more)

Source: Chandra

These two galaxy clusters are part of the "Frontier Fields" project, which uses some of the world's most powerful telescopes to study these giant structures with long observations. Galaxy clusters are enormous collections of hundreds or thousands of galaxies and vast reservoirs of hot gas embedded in massive clouds of dark matter. These images contain X-ray data from Chandra (blue), optical light from Hubble (red, green, and blue), and radio data from the Very Large Array (pink).

MACS J0416.1-2403 and MACS J0717.5+3745 : Two galaxy clusters located about 4.3 billion and 5.4 billion light years away respectively.(read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble Photo Release heic1602

The sleeping giant NGC 4889.
Image credits: NASA & ESA.

The placid appearance of NGC 4889 can fool the unsuspecting observer. But the elliptical galaxy, pictured in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, harbours a dark secret. At its heart lurks one of the most massive black holes ever discovered.(learn more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1548

X-ray image of the XXL-South Field.
Image credits: ESA/XMM-Newton/XXL survey consortium/(S. Snowden, L. Faccioli, F. Pacaud).

ESO telescopes have provided an international team of astronomers with the gift of the third dimension in a plus-sized hunt for the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe — galaxy clusters. Observations by the VLT and the NTT complement those from other observatories across the globe and in space as part of the XXL survey — one of the largest ever such quests for clusters.(read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble heic1519

Image of the galaxy cluster SpARCS1049 .
Image credits: NASA/STScI/ESA/JPL-Caltech/McGill

An international team of astronomers has discovered a gargantuan galaxy cluster with a core bursting with new stars — an incredibly rare find. The discovery, made with the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the first to show that gigantic galaxies at the centres of massive clusters can grow significantly by feeding off gas stolen from other galaxies. (read more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1508

The rich galaxy cluster Abell 1689. A1689-zD1, is located in the box — although it is still so faint that it is barely seen in this picture. Image credits: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)

One of the most distant galaxies ever observed has provided astronomers with the first detection of dust in such a remote star-forming system and tantalising evidence for the rapid evolution of galaxies after the Big Bang. The new observations have used ALMA to pick up the faint glow from cold dust in the galaxy A1689-zD1 and used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to measure its distance. (learn more)

Source: ESA/Herschel

Galaxy Cluster Fireworks.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/P.Tozzi, et al; Optical: NAOJ/Subaru and ESO/VLT; Infrared: ESA/Herschel/J. Santos, et al.

In the present universe galaxy clusters cores are typically populated by massive "red and dead" galaxies. At some point in cosmic history, however, these galaxies must have formed the bulk of their stars. Now Herschel has observed a massive cluster labelled XDCP0044 at redshift z=1.58 (lookback time ~9.5 Gyr) where galaxies in the cluster core exhibit strikingly high amounts of star formation, the first time this has been seen in a massive cluster (Santos et al. 2015).

For more information on this discovery and figure captions see the ESA Herschel SciTech web release.

Source: ESA/Hubble Science heic1416

Colour image of galaxy cluster MCS J0416.1–240.
Image credits:ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the mass within a galaxy cluster more precisely than ever before. Created using observations from Hubble's Frontier Fields observing programme, the map shows the amount and distribution of mass within MCS J0416.1–2403, a massive galaxy cluster found to be 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun. The detail in this mass map was made possible thanks to the unprecedented depth of data provided by new Hubble observations, and the cosmic phenomenon known as strong gravitational lensing. (read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble Photo Release heic1317

New Hubble view of galaxy cluster Abell 1689.
Image credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee
(NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)

This new image from Hubble is one of the best ever views of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1689, and shows the phenomenon of gravitational lensing with unprecedented clarity. This cluster acts like a cosmic lens, magnifying the light from objects lying behind it and making it possible for astronomers to explore incredibly distant regions of space. As well as being packed with galaxies, Abell 1689 has been found to host a huge population of globular clusters.(read more)

Source: ESO Science Release eso1334

New observations from the ALMA telescope in Chile have given astronomers the best view yet of how vigorous star formation can blast gas out of a galaxy and starve future generations of stars of the fuel they need to form and grow. The dramatic images show enormous outflows of molecular gas ejected by star-forming regions in the nearby Sculptor Galaxy. These new results help to explain the strange paucity of very massive galaxies in the Universe. The study is published in the journal Nature on 25 July 2013.(read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble heic1214

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field .
Image credits: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and
P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz),
R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team

 Like photographers assembling a portfolio of their best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of our deepest-ever view of the Universe. Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining ten years of NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations taken of a patch of sky within the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over one million seconds of observation, the resulting image revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the Universe ever taken at that time.

The new full-colour XDF image is even more sensitive than the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, thanks to the additional observations, and contains about 5500 galaxies, even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness that the unaided human eye can see. (read more)

Source: ESA/Hubble Photo Release heic1213

Hubble image of Arp 11.
Image credits: NASA/ESA

Two very different galaxies feature in this family portrait taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, together forming a peculiar galaxy pair called Arp 116. The image shows the dramatic differences in size, structure and colour between spiral and elliptical galaxies.(read more)

Source: Chandra

Image credits: NASA/CXC/UCDavis/W.Dawson et al.

The newly discovered galaxy cluster is called DLSCL J0916.2+2951 about 5200 million light years from Earth.  It is similar to the Bullet Cluster, the first system in which the separation of dark and normal matter was observed, but with some important differences. The newly discovered system has been nicknamed the "Musket Ball Cluster" because the cluster collision is older and slower than the Bullet Cluster.(read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1211

A wide variety of interacting galaxies in the young Hercules galaxy cluster.
Image credits:ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute

 The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile has imaged a fascinating collection of interacting galaxies in the Hercules galaxy cluster. The sharpness of the new picture, and the hundreds of galaxies captured in great detail in less than three hours of observations, attest to the great power of the VST and its huge camera OmegaCAM to explore the nearby Universe. (read more)

Source: NASA Chandra

Composite image of the El Gordo galaxy cluster.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J. Hughes et al;
Optical: ESO/VLT & SOAR/Rutgers/F. Menanteau;
IR: NASA/JPL/Rutgers/F. Menanteau )

An exceptional galaxy cluster, the largest seen in the distant universe, has been found using Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile.

Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed "El Gordo" ("the big one" or "the fat one" in Spanish) by the researchers who discovered it. The name, in a nod to the Chilean connection, describes just one of the remarkable qualities of the cluster, which is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth. This large distance means it is being observed at a young age. (read more)

Source: Chandra CXC

Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/BU/E.Blanton; Optical: ESO/VLT

Like wine in a glass, vast clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth in Abell 2052, a galaxy cluster located about 480 million light years from Earth. X-ray data (blue) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the hot gas in this dynamic system, and optical data (gold) from the Very Large Telescope shows the galaxies. The hot, X-ray bright gas has an average temperature of about 30 million degrees.(read more)

Source: ESA Hubble

Hubble image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.
Image credits:NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH Team

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to make an image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The apparently distorted shapes of distant galaxies in the background is caused by an invisible substance called dark matter, whose gravity bends and distorts their light rays. MACS 1206 has been observed as part of a new survey of galaxy clusters using Hubble.(read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1126

Leo triplet of galaxies.
Image credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM.
Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute

A huge image, from the new VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and its camera OmegaCAM at ESO's Paranal Observatory, shows a triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). But the faint objects in the background, rather than the foreground galaxies, are what may capture an astronomer’s attention. The VST’s sharp view of these dim objects hints at the power of the telescope and OmegaCAM for mapping the distant Universe. (read more)

Source: ESO and ESA/Hubble

A team of scientists has studied the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster.

They have pieced together the cluster’s complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Abell 2744 seems to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate galaxy clusters and this complex collision has produced strange effects that have never been seen together before. (read more)

Source: NASA-Astro-E2 Mission

Artist's conception of Suzaku in orbit. Image credit: ISAS/JAXA

X-ray observations made by the Suzaku observatory provide the clearest picture to date of the size, mass and chemical content of a nearby cluster of galaxies. The study also provides the first direct evidence that million-degree gas clouds are tightly gathered in the cluster's outskirts.

Suzaku is sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with contributions from NASA and participation by the  international scientific community. The findings will appear in the March 25 issue of the journal Science.

Galaxy clusters are millions of light-years across, and most of their normal matter comes in the form of hot X-ray-emitting gas that fills the space between the galaxies.(read more)